stressful situations

From my first job as a waitress at Bady's Catering company, to my last as an assistant baker on my at Skytop Lodge in the poconos, I've noticed different ways of approaching management. In my eyes I simply see the managers that care, the ones that don't, and the ones that get there prep done take a 3 hour break, and check on us once in a while. My first job as a waitress was easy, the owner was a good friend of the family, so he would let me wonder around the kitchen before weddings, and let me help out with prep, teaching me knife skills, presentation, and how to have fun with your job when bizarre things would happen. I remember one of the first weddings I worked with Bady's, we were transferring the wedding cake to an off campus location, and half way down our back alley drive way the cake tipped over in the back of the van. With only 2 hours left till the cake had to be unveiled, my manager slowly looked at me in the passenger seat, took a deep breath, turned around to his nephew in the back who was there for "support" and calmly said, "Once we're back in the kitchen, start a 3x batch of vanilla cake, and Laurel, I'm teaching you how to make Italian Butter cream today. Let's do this." Luckily we had enough time to get back, round up some more assistance to get the food to the wedding and served in time, while we stayed back and redid a 3 tierd pearled cake. In my eyes that's a great manager, one who stays calm in sticky situations (literally) and one who will try to expand your knowledge on what you are producing, selling, etc. However, my last job/extern, was a complete 180 of that. I enjoyed my job, and the people I worked with, don't get me wrong, but my Pastry Chef, Executive Chef, and Sous Chef did not give any one who hasn't been there for more than at least 2 years any creative rights, or really anytime to work on separate projects when we weren't busy. The most I got to be creative with was the dessert plating, doing different designs every night. I did not really see the passion for cooking that I had in any 3 of my managers at Skytop. Also, they were all a tight knit group of friends that spent most of the time in Chefs office after making a huge mess at their station for an extern to clear off. And even though they would talk all day, barely any of it was about what was going on that day. In a way I felt jipped and taken advantage of a great experience. Them knowing I obviously want to pursue cooking and baking as my profession, and them not trying to blow my mind with some new thing every chance they could get. I feel like to have/be a good manager, they need to obviously know what they are doing, communicate clearly, give feedback and respect no matter how far down you are in the brigade system or just the job itself, and enjoy your job and working close with people.